“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Secondary Menu

Monthly Archives: March 2015

Language Arts class in small-town Sikeston, Missoura High School English class included dissecting the minutia of literary classics of the day. Among these was Harper Lee’s treatment of rape, class, racial violence, and justice (and injustice) in To kill a Mockingbird.

Atticus Finch tells his tomboy daughter Scout to remember that “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”. Mockingbirds never harm other living creatures, but simply provide pleasure with their songs, “They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.” ‘To kill a mockingbird’ is to kill that which is innocent and harmless—like Tom Robinson.”

Atticus is a small-town southern lawyer who raises the legal standard with his unpopular representation of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman, named Mayella. Finch’s children Scout and Jem, and their friend Dill are central characters and through whose eyes we see the plot unfold.

Scout soon must defend her father’s honor when classmates taunt that he’s a “nigger-lover,” and defuses a lynch mob as she stands by him blocking the door to the jail. Atticus had taught Scout (and us) that mobs do not think, but rather act on emotion. Atticus tells Jem to remember that mobs are “made up of people”, meaning that if a mob is broken down into the individuals that are part of it, then it is no longer a mob thinking with the emotional collective brain. It is now just a group of individuals each with his own sense of right and wrong.

People, on their own, are far less apt to do the things that mobs do. Mobs tend to rely on emotion and not thought, whereas people are more likely to use some thought before they act. Even people who disagree on some issues can stand up for one another and protect one another.

One of the many symbolic side-plots, Atticus must shoot a rabid dog (a not so subtle racism metaphor) running in the street, although it’s “not his job to do it.” This is clearly Harper Lee’s reminder of our own free choice to do what is right, despite whether or not it’s our obligation to do so.

And so we come back to Holy Week.

Jesus is approaching Jerusalem. Somehow word has leaked out that here is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Could he be the Messiah?

Word spreads in the gathering crowd. He’s riding on a donkey with her colt. Didn’t the prophet Zechariah say something about this? Could he be the Messiah?

By now the crowd is large. Then the actions start. Somewhere in the midst of all the people someone lays a branch on the ground in front of Jesus. Then someone else does it. Someone else lays a cloak on the ground. And before you know it seemingly everyone is doing it.

And such a clamor! Everyone is making noise, noise that comes together in a din, nothing very defined. Until, ringing out distinctly above it all, a word is heard, a prayer. Others join in. Finally, in unison, like a great choir, all around Jesus the crowd is shouting, “Hosanna!”

Save us, son of David, from the oppressive hand of the Roman rulers!

Save us from our sin, Jesus, you who come in the name of the Lord!

Of course you know what’s next.

It’s not just the Roman leaders here who think Jesus is a threat to the establishment. It’s also the Jewish religious leaders.

For many years the Jewish people have been under foreign rule. Uprisings have been attempted—even uprisings that were thought to be messianic. But now, at this time in history, the religious leaders have it pretty well. They are the “who’s who” in the city of Jerusalem. The Roman overlords give these religious leaders quite a lot of liberty. These religious leaders have grown accustomed to the respect shown them. And so on.

But now this so-called prophet, this Jesus of Nazareth, is causing a stir. Not good, as far as the religious leaders are concerned. Not good, to the point that they want him out of the way—to the point that they want him dead! Yes, he’s that much of a threat!

Apparently they’re not the only disgruntled ones. Whether it’s impatience, frustration, or something more sinister – truly evil, One of his closest followers, hand picked for redemption, has sold Him out for thirty pieces of silver!

Jesus is then tried in an early morning, nefarious kangaroo court, and found guilty on trumped up charges. Pilate, the Roman leader in charge of the trial, caves to the mob. Instigated by the Jewish religious leaders, the crowd shouts, again and again, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

But here’s the worst part: this is by and large the same crowd that was shouting Hosanna just a few days ago. And now it’s, “Crucify him!”

We humans are fickle.

There are times we feel like nothing can come between me and Jesus. He has redeemed me; he is saving me from all my sin and wickedness; and he will lead me into glory. I know this in the bottom of my heart, down to the core of my being. And nothing’s gonna shake me. Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!

But you know how it is. Life sneaks in a sucker punch. We don’t see it coming, but all of a sudden the wind is knocked out of us. All of a sudden, we have questions, doubts, quandaries. And we begin to think, Maybe I’m not so sure about my faith after all. Maybe Jesus was just a man, that this story I’ve heard all my life, that this faith I practice, is just a complex Santa Claus story. Viscerally I believe, and not just with my emotions, but truly with my reasoning as well. But from somewhere creeps these doubts. Maybe the crowd’s right after all. Maybe I should just give up, forget this emotional wave I’ve been surfing. Maybe I should just give in and yell “Crucify him!” with everyone else.

So then, what are you going to do?

And so, here we are on Palm Sunday participating in the annual reading of Our Lord’s Passion. We get to the part where we’re supposed to be the worked up mob, “Crucify Him! CRUCIFY HIM!!!” My inner Pharisee feigns indignation. “I would never have shouted that!” Who am I fooling? Of course I would have.

Jesus hand-picked these twelve from anyone in the world. They lived with Him for three years. They witnessed miracles. Firsthand! They saw lepers cured; With their own eyes, they saw Lazarus and the small child raised from the dead! Three of them witnessed the transfiguration. They saw Him walk on water!

But they fell asleep when He begged them to stay awake. Everyone of them (except John) deserted him and ran for their lives. The man He trusted enough to hand over the “keys,” and whom He called “the rock,” denied him three times, cursing that He didn’t even know the Man.

And I think I’m better than they were? I, who beg and plead for a deeper love and stronger faith, because of my human weaknesses?

God has the fullness of time, seeing the past, present, and future all together. He knew these men would betray Him. And He made me this way. With all of my doubts, faults, and shallowness. He knows I try. He knows I love Him with all that my human weakness allows. But, in fact, I am human. “Lord I do believe. Help my unbelief!”

What you are is God’s gift to you. What you become is your gift to God (Hans Urs Von Balthasar)

It’s always startling to look up from the pews and not see the image of Christ up behind the altar. Many churches place a veil there during Holy Week, or even the entire 40 days of Lent, to aid in our Lenten journey of “doing without.” Apparently this is an ancient custom, another tradition packed with meaning and symbolism. It arose during the earliest times, reminiscent of the Jewish temple curtain, “torn in half,” at the moment of Jesus’ self-sacrifice. (Mt 27:50-51);(Mk 15,38);(Lk 23,45).

My German brothers I met on the Camino call this veil the Fastentuch, or “fasting cloth.”

Everything in the Church has meaning – everything we do, everything we say, every object and every action. They either are truth, or they represent/remind us of scripture, or a calling to reverence for our Lord. This is the essence of the “tradition” that is so confusing to those looking in, and mis-represented by so many “leaders” outside of the Church to their respective congregations.

From “crossing ourselves” to a Crucifix on the wall. From Holy Water to statues. From memorized prayers and a liturgical form of worship to vestments worn by the ordained. Even if your own faith tradition doesn’t understand the relevance or scriptural basis for “traditions” such as these, certainly you can see the beauty in provoking a deeper atmosphere of prayer and reverence.

So anyway, the inner curtain of the Jewish temple separated the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, from all of us.

And so, this tearing open of the curtain with the death of Jesus opens up access to the inner sanctum, and we now may enter into our own relationships with Him.

The Lenten Veil separates the community from that image of Jesus we grow so familiar with, and tend to take for granted. There are many places where any display of this symbol representing the very heart of our faith are forbidden, and actually subject to severe punishment. When we look up and see the Cross of Jesus gone, it pulls viscerally, and creates a longing. It symbolizes an emptiness of life without our faith, without Jesus. We are truly alone, and life has lost all of its meaning.

This is a form of physical penance, of fasting. The vernacular term “starving” thus refers not only to material poverty, but to a spiritual nakedness of facing life alone, the futility of suffering for no reason. Again, life loses all of its meaning.

Wikipedia affirms it in its German edition:

The somber custom is believed to come from a 9th century German practice of extending a large cloth called the “Hungertuch” (hunger cloth) before the altar from the beginning of Lent. The cloth – which hid the altar – was not removed until during the reading of the Passion on the Wednesday in Holy Week – at the words, “the veil of the temple was rent in two.”

The building and placement of a fast cloth was – as a religious – with a few exceptions Tradition maintained until the 18th century only in Catholic areas, as Luther against this tradition of religious art pronounced as “Gaukelwerk”.Although they once extended far beyond the original boundaries, they remained after the Reformation obtained only in the formation bidding;occasionally there are still churches that maintain the tradition.However, it appears that the Lenten veil is being rediscovered as an art form, and many Protestant churches now participate in the custom.

And so as we joyously and jubilantly welcomed the Messiah Yeshua into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we progress through the most holy of weeks.

We are encouraged to commit to our own sacrifice. If we’ve never “given up” anything for Lent, or if we’ve failed to keep good on that intent this season, its time to recommit for these last seven days. Again, it’s not what we sacrifice, its that we sacrifice. And it’s not for Him, it’s for us. Some small reminder of what should really be important in our lives. Something that forces us to pause, to focus, to imagine being without.

Most certainly Jesus knew how the week would end – the suffering of His Passion, the panic and despair of his followers, and their jubilant ecstasy of his victory over death at His Resurrection. As we remember and desperately miss our beloved family and friends who have departed, we take much consolation in the confidence that our Lord has torn open that curtain, embracing them as they enter to the other side.

I don’t know if Helene Friedman is alive anymore, but I do have fond memories. About half of what she said was incomprehensibly Yiddish, but I found her antics generally entertaining. She was quite old and feeble, and an infamous “cat-lady,” who always seemed to just “appear out of thin air” holding two cat carriers. The few dollar bills she could produce were damp from inside her brassiere, and her glasses were literally taped together. One thing that sticks with me, after 25 years, is her saying something about “Kinna Hurra,” which she said was so I would not get the evil eye. It was all a bit of nonsense to me, reminiscent of the “stink eye” mentioned in the movie Juno, or that unpleasant leer Michelle Obama whips out sometimes.But apparently that’s not at all what she was referring to.

My Rabbi client was in the other day and I mentioned this, and he smiled amusingly at me like my Spanish clients do when I make an attempt at saying something coherent in their language.

“You must mean, ‘Kein Ayin Hora,’ which is the Yiddish version of the Hebrew, ‘Bli Ayin Hara.'”

“Yes, of course that’s surely what I meant,” I smiled back, equally entertained at myself.

“What the heck does it mean?”

The good Rabbi gave me two explanations.

The more traditional describes the “curse” placed on someone who succeeds or attains goals or wealth. A less fortunate person would look with great jealousy (ayin hara) at his brother and pray to Almighty Gd, complaining of the inequity. The “evil eye” has effectively placed a “hex.” The would result in someone acting or showing less evidence of success to avoid such a curse. Likewise, if complimented, he might say “Kinna Hurra,” or actually spit afterwards, to avoid the curse (apparently evil spirits don’t like spit). And so when one observes something good happening, he then quickly follows up with this expression, so as not to “jinx” the apparent good outcome. (I laughed out loud because I remembered Helene actually spitting after uttering her kinnahurra, and how taken back I was that she would do so in my exam room!)

The explanation he said he liked better was deeper, and probably more meaningful to me, as a Christian. “One of your ‘Catholic Books’ is called Tobit (I nodded, because I had recently read these 7 books tossed during the reformation, and remembered it pretty well). Well Tobit, as well as Proverbs, refers to the concept of the ‘eye’ as a window, letting in light.”

But the ancients also thought of the eye another way, as lights shining interior light of the body. Psalm 38 talks about ‘eyes as having lost their luster.’ Of course you are thinking in medical terms, Dr. Bill, but this isn’t scientific, or medical. It’s the observation that someone’s eyes show their inner character.

I shared that Matthew and Luke both talk about the eyes showing light or darkness within. The Rabbi smiled approvingly, and continued,

Indeed, the eye is a lamp. Yeshua contrasts two kinds of eyes. The first is healthy and generous. It is contrasted with the evil eye. The concept of the evil eye is well known in rabbinic and pagan texts as an idiom for one giving a curse. So, Yeshua’s meaning is to contrast the eye that curses others with the eye that blesses or desires good for others. Generous is a good translation (possibly healthy could work as well, since the healthy eye sees people as needing blessing).

So, Matthew and Luke make more sense now – if the eye is generous, it is bright and the body is filled with interior light or goodness. But if the eye is set on cursing others, the body is full of darkness.

And so, my friend, the little old woman in your memory was not only wishing you well, but paying you the highest compliment. She felt you were generous and had treated her kindly.

I thought of Helene recently, which is probably why this story was in my mind when the Rabbi came in. I was on a bus at the North American Veterinary Conference, shuttling between the two meeting venues when I looked over to the other side of the road to see an elderly woman running with a hand-written cardboard sign. In her other hand she held a pet carrier that she was swinging wildly. This strange sight caught the attention of the bus-load full of veterinarians, until the cage door sprung open and her few clothes and possessions fell to the ground. Many people in nearby cars seemed amused, smiling as they looked away, but my stomach fell to the floor, as I continued to watch. She dropped the broken cage and started wiping her face, over and over again, as her tears continued to stream down her cheeks. As she placed her glasses back on her face, I saw the tape holding them together.

As the light changed to green, my bus rolled away, and I smiled to see brake-lights of someone stopping to help her.

And so, the eyes are the window to the inner character, and perhaps the soul itself.

Do we look away with Ayin Hara, an evil eye of inner darkness, or do we look compassionately with Ken Ayin Hara, a generous eye shining with an inner light?

I’ll continue to fail miserably, I’m sure. However, I am beginning to recognize Him along my own journey to Emmaus. I’m reminded of a prayer shared with me by a Jesuit at Whitehouse Retreat in St. Louis:

Sudden brake lights are unexpected halfway through an on-ramp, and my dogs slammed into the back of my seat as I smashed down on my own petal. A saw the flashing yellow lights as I leaned out the window to discover the cause of the delay. Animals are an important part of my life, and so I took particular interest when I saw the green truck turned sideways on the ramp was that of a game-warden.

My smile revealed my inner-dork as I watched him urge from the road to safety the beautiful family of Sand Hill Cranes. The two parents frantically pranced about, doing their best to “protect” the two juveniles (called colts) from the silly looking uniformed man, dancing in the road and waving a towel to shoo them across to safety.

Sand Hill Cranes (Grus canadensis) display a behavior we humans would consider most unusual, even odd. They are monogamous, they mate for life, and never choose another – even after death. This was a primary reason why they are considered a threatened species – these magnificent creatures live for over 20 years, and if one of the pair is killed, they other will raise the kids by himself (herself), and then be alone for the rest of its life.

I remember the empty, nearly teary feeling I felt one day last year as I drove on a Narcoossee Road, in Lake Nona. Ahead I could see a crane dancing so elegantly, rising and swooping and spreading his huge wings, as he pranced back and forth in the road. As I neared I could see that his was not a courtship ritual, nor one of proud celebration. Whether for protection from further oncoming traffic, or out of grief, this was a very different display, as he frantically leapt, back and forth over his mate lying lifelessly in the road.

(Not surprisingly), I pondered these two scenes for the next hour, as I drove to work. Clearly, the mate for life thing merits mention, and I’d assume most of us would agree its a good idea, perhaps a lofty ideal. But not exactly practical in the real world. I mean there’s job stress, money struggles, midlife crises, and cheating spouses to consider. It’s just not very practical in this day and age, living in the “real world.” What do a couple of stupid birds know? We’re so lucky we don’t have to be bound by ridiculous outdated rules.

But a second notion comes to mind.

If the cranes are us and our relationships, the oncoming traffic is the real world and societal pressures, then I suppose the wildlife officers are… the few (unfortunately) people in our lives that care enough about us to stand in harm’s way to protect us, and (in this case) our commitments and relationships. They hold us to a high standard. They push us, and even shake some sense into us as we wander. He doesn’t share porn, pay for a lap dance, or “high-five” his buddy as he leaves after drinks with his non-wife on a fishing trip. And she doesn’t look the other way at work as her co-worker comes back disheveled from a 3 hour lunch, let her drunk friend leave the pub with a hook-up, or laugh vicariously as she listens gleefully to her cheating friend. What would a real friend do?

Mind your own business, and watch your friend’s life swirl down the drain? Remember that the next time you see the real victims, their children. Perhaps we shouldn’t mind our own business, perhaps we are “our brother’s keeper.”

The father of the bride was becoming frantic. He sped up and down the lanes of the church parking lot, but there were no parking spots. The wedding would start in four minutes! Time for bargaining. “I know I skip church on game days, or when the bass are biting, or when I just want to sleep late – never again! – I’ll go every Sunday! FIND ME A PLACE TO PARK!!! I’ll never look away when a beggar needs a few dollars. I promise! Ok, Ok, I’ll even go to my in-laws next weekend. AAARRGGGHHH!!! JUST FIND ME A PLACE TO PARK!!!” Two minutes to go, and the car ahead backs out, opening a place to park. “Never-mind God, I found one!”

Are prayers answered? How? What IS prayer, anyway? What is it for you?

Is prayer simply asking God for favors? Is it begging, pleading and deal-making from a “fox-hole?” Or is it a two way conversation? Certainly, the mystics claimed to hear the voice of God. Saints Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, Ignatious, Therese, Bernadette, and many more, wrote volumes sharing what they heard God say.

When I was walking the Camino de Santiago as part of my grieving process, I wanted desperately to hear Charlton Heston or James Earl Jones booming from the clouds, but was met with silence. However, a few hundred miles into the journey, it became clear that our Lord speaks to us in many, many ways. That clumsy first attempt at blogging described dozens of these “encounters,” apparently quite common on that pilgrimage.

But you certainly don’t have to travel to Spain to encounter God in a very real way. Many/Most of you may grimace at the idea of God “talking to you.” Even the “churched,” especially if their faith consists of “checking the box” every Sunday, or even twice a year, may cringe at the idea of someone who claims to hear the voice of God. SNL skits come to mind ridiculing Jimmy Swaggart and Oral Roberts. But without “hearing the voice,” can we really get answers?

Answered prayers are news-worthy, because they surprise us. Headlines, movies, and books are often written to describe cured cancer, inexplicable near misses, and unlikely rescues. These re-invigorate the faithful. Which is good. Except…

Why would you pray, if you didn’t honestly feel He was listening, cared about you, and was anxious to have these “encounters?” If we really believe our prayers could/will be answered, then why is it newsworthy when they are?

Perhaps we simply don’t know how to listen. Its almost as if we hold out for an answered prayer to be accompanied by a vision, a voice, an apparition. But, really. If Jesus of Nazareth is really and truly here with us as we walk each step, every day, perhaps we should express a bit of common sense.

Was the father of the bride (above) expecting an explosion and a new parking lot, with the glowing Christ to be directing him into a parking place? Wouldn’t a much more logical explanation be that He “directed” the driver of the exiting car to have business finished so they could leave when they did, so you could pull in just in the nick of time for the nuptials?

Likewise, how would the creator of the universe, create the universe? Wouldn’t you expect it would be so through a natural phenomenon? How absurd would it be for a big bang to cause itself?

If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing.

If there is no independent being, then the whole chain of dependent beings is dependent on nothing and could not exist.

For the smart aleck out there who thinks Steven Hawking adequately addresses this, I’ve read Hawking’s refutation, and even though he’s probably lots smarter than me, he misses the entire point. He dismisses (see also addendum A) a “caused big-bang,” because:

You can’t get to a time before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. We have finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in.

But therein lies the problem, Christians (as well as most other faithful types) believe God is omnipresent (has always existed), and, in fact, created time, when He created stuff, and non-stuff (space).

It’s the whole “time-space-continuum” thing that makes me as dizzy as that ridiculous quantum physics class (that greatly contributed to my insanity). Einstein’s insistence to keep asking, “What if…” results in (see also addendum B) his Theory of Relativity, and at least a profound theist belief in a Gd who directed creation. (addendum C).

Time and space are characteristics of our world, not God’s. He is not limited by hours, days and years as we are. In fact, the Bible tells us that “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).

And so, if God is “timeless” and not bound by the concept which in fact, we believe He created, it follows that He sees all past, present, and future on the same page – all at the same time. Therefore, we believe that He knows each of us intimately at the very instant of conception, when we are instilled with what we call a “soul.” He knows each of our decisions, beliefs, rejections, and our final destiny. “Clearly this all becomes fuzzy,” especially when we consider Calvin’s treatment of Gods omniscient knowledge of our choices and therefore our destination. And since God made us this way, including the part of our brain which makes decisions, Calvin had it all figured out with his five pillars – only a “few are chosen,” therefore, most of us are in a bit of trouble. But it’s not our fault, and we (obviously) didn’t really have free choice. (That’s Calvin’s bent, clearly not mine).

I realize my line of reason seldom takes a strait line trajectory…

If, in fact, God is timeless, and we truly believe God can affect and effect the course of outcomes (possibly by giving us additional opportunities to make new “free” choices which change the course HE sees otherwise happening), then it seems to me quite plausible to take this a step further.

Since He sees past, present and future all together, can not He favor our petitions, effecting a change, even if we pray for something after its course has already been determined? Let’s think about this with a simple example…

Suppose you prayed for an exam scheduled for today to be easy. You were at the hospital all night with a sick mother, and never even studied. You knew the test was important, and offered up your petition at her bedside. Our Lord considered your position and … obliged. You were THRILLED to see such an easy test. Every question had an easy answer – it seemed like common sense. Not only are you thrilled, your confidence in God, prayer, and faith has been affirmed … UNTIL … The teacher announces that she had had commitments yesterday, and so prepared the questions the previous week – long before any prayers had been offered up. Your prayers couldn’t have been answered, due to the timing. It was just an easy test.

Or perhaps you’re on a sailboat and encounter an unexpected storm. Treacherous waves, unrelenting wind, sounds eerily similar to the hurricane you remember so well. For hours, all you could do was lower the sail. The craft was awash, waves cresting well above and over the deck. Heading into the wind she finds herself “in irons,” and the captain can only lower the sails, and hope the tiny auxiliary motor can keep some semblance of control. Soon the storm has passed, but out of fuel, you can only drift with the current, and after three days encounter the friendly shores of an unintended island. Haha, you knew you could do it, and you never really felt in danger. So exciting, so exhilirating. The adventure of a lifetime.

However, unbeknownst to you, literally hundreds of thousands of family, friends, and strangers had offered up prayers for your safety. The fact that the petitions were offered AFTER the storm was over made them, of course, “wasted effort.” Or were they? Could the Creator-of-the-Universe have, in the aforementioned time-space-continuum, have considered the petitions about to be offered up, and changed the course that miserable storm was to have on you even before the fact? Could the winds have finally relented, as you reached a current that would drift you into safety?

How are prayers answered? I think in many ways. And I purport that our questions and needs are addressed in many different ways as well. Perhaps its presumptuous of us to assume that we have the cognitive ability to know the ways of the same Creator-of-the-Universe. We don’t really expect to hear a deep, resounding human voice from the clouds, do we? We would be stunned if that actually happened, so clearly we anticipate other forms of response.

We believe that God is love. Not simply that He loves. Not simply that He, through His Son, showed us how to love. But rather, that God islove. Emmanuel – God is with us in the love that we feel from others, and for others. 164,882 people praying for my daughter, expressing love for a complete stranger in need, is in fact, the pure manifestation of God’s love and evidence that in fact, He is with us.

Much Love.

Thank You.

addendum A: Hawking’s argument of gravity’s role in the bang assumes that gravity somehow existed before the Big Bang, yet Hawking then goes on to maintain that nothing, including God, existed before the Big Bang. Hmmm … Hawking’s logic is selective.

addendum B: <Planck?> Non Euclidian Geometry evolves into the concept of the “tesseract,” and eventually his Theory of Relativity.

addendum C: although he rejected the Hebrew (and Christian) notion of a Gd with whom one has a personal relationship, and involved in each of our own personal decisions and destinies.

“I’m fine, I think I’m doing really well, considering it just happened a year ago.”

The conversation is still fresh in my mind, although it took place over a year ago. The best part of family reunions is breakfast talk, and this one was with my oldest brother. With a father who was absent much of the time, this brother takes on the alpha role, and it seems to continue on, decades later.

Anyway, he asked me a second time, “Bill, really, how are you?”

“Really, I’m much better than most people would be after losing a child,” I replied very matter-of-factly. “But life is just much different now. I have absolutely no patience for bull-shit, no interest in unimportant things. I don’t care about anything at all that doesn’t make me a ‘better version of myself,’ more likely to do what I’m supposed to do while I’m here.”

“That doesn’t sound like much fun, there’s more to life than just the important things!”

The tone had suddenly become very serious. “Here’s the deal… trust me, you have nothing to worry about – I would never do anything to hurt myself, but I don’t really care if I live, or not. I’m ‘over it,’ and ready to check out”

My big brother’s face drained of all color. I continued, “If I were diagnosed with cancer tomorrow, I’d tell no one, and not even consider any treatment.” I was talking to a man in the midst of debilitating and painful prostate cancer treatment and recovery. I’d held his hand as he recovered from anesthesia. That was back when I thought divorce and the loss of my mother would be my darkest days, and the greatest tests of my faith.

He looked down at me as I had grown accustomed, he was the big brother with all of life’s knowledge, and I was Billy, the naive little boy. He was using his adult logic to tell me how “stupid” my feelings were. Except this time he was wrong. It was I that had the knowledge, the life experience.

I ripped back into him angrily, for the first time in my memory, It was as if he was from Mars, and had no idea what he was talking about, about how things really were. This time it was I who possessed all of life’s knowledge. I had lost my son, and he had no idea what he was talking about.

It seemed perfectly logical to me. If a 19 year old child, my first son, could die, the world would end soon for all of us. Perhaps I felt as though the world had ended already. My world had. This was not a metaphor, it’s truly how I felt. And if I was going to die soon, why would I get my oil changed, or get new tires, or cut the damn grass.

The shrinks nod approvingly, because apparently it’s just another stage to progress through, and mine were not uncommon feelings. I hadn’t sought out mental health therapy, but it seemed to seek me out. I’d been urged to visit, or even visited by organizations like Compassionate Friends, Rainbows, and ClearCause Foundation. These are some pretty awesome folks well versed in uplifting the survivors. But I’m a self-help junkie, and prefer to experience epiphany myself, especially if I can do it in a setting with my Lord and Savior.

Besides, like in the Tim McGraw song, Live Like You Were Dyin’, shouldn’t we all live like today could be our last day? The tragedy had tested my faith, and directed me towards (an attempt at) being that “best version of myself,” that Matthew Kelly talks about. In fact, it’s become my mantra when dealing with people myself, or pontificating to others – “Never say or do anything to someone that you wouldn’t want to be the last thing you ever said or did.” And, in fact that is most certainly a healthy “life vision,” the best way to navigate through our daily encounters with others.

But the problem is, how selfish it was making me. My focus of getting me through life righteously, would be much easier if it was a short life. And so when I hiked the Camino de Santiago, I always took the highest, most dangerous, risky passages at every opportunity. I agreed to jump out of “a perfectly good airplane” with my daughter Kayla on her 18th birthday, and I didn’t really care if my tires had been bald for a month. That was the stuff I did subconsciously, my self-destructive unconscious. My visible encounters with others took on the tone of, “What’s the right thing for me to do?” But not for their sake, but for my own. To get to heaven, but not just to get to heaven. Because it makes God happy with me.

Upon reading back over this last paragraph, I realize it sounds like splitting hairs, and very philosophical. Here’s what I mean – years ago, I heard a Buddhist version of a parable.

The student, after years of instruction, was told that his route to heaven was his mantra. It was whispered in his ear, and he was sternly warned not to share it with anyone. He asked the wise old monk, “What if I tell others of this mantra?” “That would give them all access to heaven, but you would lose your own salvation. It would be very foolish.” Shortly later, the wise old monk heard much commotion outside, and looked to observe his student on the street, sharing his mantra with his family, his friends, everyone, in fact, who would listen. The wise old monk rushed out to him, and looked down proudly, “You have learned well, and will most certainly join your friends in paradise.”

You see the difference? It can not be “all about me.” Getting myself to heaven may, in fact be the point, but a much more loving and effective way to do so is selflessly.

So what’s any of this got to do with my daughter being lost at sea?

The “Tara”

Six days after we lost contact with Emily, I actually became angry with her for being so inconsiderate. How could she put her life in such peril? All of our lives had been torn apart, how literally destroyed each of us have been, how much pain her brother’s death had caused. What was she thinking?!! Clearly not thinking! Completely selfish and inconsiderate! I’d had this very talk with her as we flew back from China with his ashes. Our family could not withstand another loss. Blatantly discarding all consideration of her family, she disregarded us and our feelings, and went on a tiny sailboat in predicted rough seas, and… and…

And yet, here I had been doing the same thing for two years.

Much of last Thursday’s workday had been on the phone with the United States Coast Guard and with Emily’s big sister’s fiance (a yacht captain), and the parents of Emily’s friend (the captain of the 32 foot Tara), being strong and coherent. The rest of the day was spent squatting in the back room of my veterinary hospital embracing Cullen’s dog Svedka with tears streaming down my cheeks.

Then I drove home for two hours going 80 miles an hour in the rain on bald tires. “And so, when I hydro-planed to my death, surely my son would embrace me, and lead me ‘home,’ to our Lord.” How incredible will that be??? Much like Mercy Me’s hit I Can Only Imagine, I do look forward to that day! But somehow, now it sounds embarrassing to even write down those words.

Do I think the loss of my own life would be any easier for Cullen’s siblings? To lose their father, and new stepfather? And my own siblings? Any my wife? After already losing her first husband to lymphoma, I don’t have any more compassion and consideration for her than to take absurd risks with my own life, because I’m “over it?”

Psychologists call it cathexis.

It’s the emotional energy used in concentrating on a person, or the emotional value we develop and place on someone.

I had so valued my relationship with Cullen, that I had disregarded my own value to Emily (who I was now angry with for being so “selfish”), Camille (who is counting on me to walk her down the aisle in a few months and to love and embrace those grandchildren she has planned), Kayla and Noah (who already said goodbye to their first father when they were just babies), and Sharon, who has already had the love of her life ripped from her by cancer.

And on that sixth day, as my anger evolved into concern, and I found my voice cracking, and often unable to complete sentences containing her name. Only when I made myself numb could I speak matter-of-factly to the Coast Guard and others involved in the search. I flashed back to my steps to the pulpit to deliver Cullen’s eulogy.

Our “Camino,” this journey through life, is full of growth and lessons that must be learned through living, and not taught from someone else’s perspective.

I can not be told how stupidly I’m behaving, I must come to that realization on my own. In psychoanalytic terms, this process is called de-cathexis.

In order to refocus your life’s energies toward the future, you need displace some of that emotion onto other people and things in your life. This process cannot be rushed, it takes time.

There have been many lessons learned from the Tara’s being blown off course by a wicked storm:

Many people, loved ones as well as strangers, have reconnected to prayer with our Lord. Seldom are our prayers so quickly and visibly answered. Thanks again to over a hundred thousand who bowed their heads for us. In the only conversation I’ve had with her since, Emily described this all as very humbling. If reconnecting others to prayer was the only consequence of this saga, its all been worthwhile.

My big brother still knows more than I do.

Emily’s a big girl, and gets to make her own decisions. I’m not allowed to get upset if she doesn’t see things from my perspective. I’d have gone on that sailboat too. I have many times. And she won’t learn the same lessons that I would have. She’s not me. Others travel their own journey, stumble and fall, and gain their own knowledge.

My car handles much better now with my new tires.

Sometimes, when the storm is too brutal, we must lower our sails, but then we drift and will eventually founder. I’ve learned that it must be raised again to catch the wind, and move forward.

Perhaps most importantly, I’m afforded the unexpected luxury of learning one of life’s valuable lessons, this time without tragedy. It’s much different than reading books on grief recovery assuring me that, “It’s OK to keep living. We don’t betray our lost loved ones by resuming life.”

It’s OK, or even required, to refocus some of that emotion, and reconnect with others that continue to love us, and also ache with their own bloodied knees. Much Love.